IE7 problem - opening tabs crashes browser

[pichichi]

Newbie here..

Just looking for some advice on a problem I'm having with IE7 wherby each time I try to open a new tab the browser crashes.

The background to this is that I recently had a problem with malware and viruses due to an infected .exe file that was executed on my system. Using the various virus/spyware tools available I thought that I had cleaned everything up. It seems however that I have a recurrent problem as I still receive many popups each time I run IE. More annoying however is this problem where the browser crashes whenever I try to open a new tab.

I have installed the BETA version of MS LiveOne Care and it has discovered amongst others a virus named W32/Adialer.gen and successfully removed it. It seems however that the software has failed to remove it on a permanent basis as each time it is removed it keeps coming back and I am pretty sure it has something to do with this IE problem. Furthermore I am seeing a few other strange things such as the windows firewall options greyed out and the inability of LiveMessenger to connect.

Interestingly Google throws up very little information on the particular virus so I have come on here to ask if anyone else experienced symptoms such as these and if so can perhaps advise on the matter.

Many thanks.

[cluberti]

I'm not particularly familiar with that virus, but I can tell you that common best practice when you are infected with any recurrent virus is to back up your data to a read-only medium (cd or dvd) if possible, then format and reinstall the OS. Otherwise, the typical steps would apply if you're against reinstallation - spybot, hijackthis, adaware, windows defender, an online virus scan (or two, or three), etc. And you must at least file away in the back of your mind whilst doing this that you still might not get clean without a reinstall...

[pichichi]

Thanks for the advice. Some people have advised me to disable IE add-ons which seems to have solved the issue of browser crashes but I am still concerned that the virus may be on the system. Seeing as my pc hasn't been reinstalled for several years, it may be a good time to do it anyway!

Many thanks.